The African-American Novel and You

Novels relating the African American experience have played a huge role in popular culture. But the role they have played in our own personal consciousness is equally enormous. Facts learned in an educational setting tend to be impersonal and, while perhaps interesting, fail to leave a lasting impression. A novel, on the other hand, can reach out and grab you by the throat, or the guts.

 Even if it’s fictionalized, a story about someone else’s life experiences can evoke emotions and reactions that you may not be prepared for. If that someone else is a different race, or living in a different time, the experience is often eye-opening and sometimes upsetting. And if that’s the case, then a): the author did a great job and b): that book is likely to become (or already is) a classic in its genre. A book may deal with uncomfortable truths, and may make you squirm. But the strongest books, with the most lasting influences, will leave you outraged, horrified, devastated and sometimes speechless.

Maplewood Library’s Amanda Eigen will be delving into some of these extraordinary books in her interactive discussion of Black Fiction. Some will be familiar, others may be new to you, but their unifying factor is that all have left their mark: on culture, on the literary world, but most significantly on the reader.

The discussion will be held at Hilton Branch Library on Thursday, February 23 at 6:30 pm. The program is free and open to the public.

Book Couples: One Good Book Leads to Another

It happens to me a lot. Because of a love of reading and an insatiable curiosity, one book will often lead me, coax me, or send me headlong towards another.

For example, in The Namesake, there is simply no getting away from Nikolai Gogol, or from his book The Overcoat. I want to know everything. I have to experience the connection for myself. A character in The Hours affectionately calls another “Mrs Dalloway”, the title character, of course, in Virginia Woolf’s novel. Next thing I know, Mrs. Dalloway  is on her way home with me.

Historical fiction can often open doors I never even knew were there. In school, I always hated history. Dates…facts…boredom. Put those same events into a novel, and you have my attention. As an adult, Irving Stone’s Those Who Love started it all for me. I had to know more about John and Abigail Adams and the life they led. I took out books on period costume and architecture and read what I could (within reason; there’s a lot out there!) about John himself. When My Dearest Friend came out, I felt like John and Abigail were old familiar friends.

I have sailed the world in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels. My experience of them has been enriched by travel diaries, atlases, books on British naval history, medical emergencies at sea, navigation, period weaponry, even a book on the history of laudanum. Do I read every word? Of course not, but my curiosity is usually satisfied, and my world expanded.

The theme of this month’s book display at Main Library is Book Couples. The books are meant to be borrowed and enjoyed together. The connections may be readily apparent, but not always. Maybe you’ve already read one half of the couple; take them both home and you may find yourself paging through it again as you read its mate. I highly recommend it for devoted readers, the insatiably curious, or those just looking for a couple of good books to enjoy together.  Posted by Joanne.

Crime, Greed, High Drama? Must Be Dickens…

Today is Charles Dickens’ 200th Birthday. Just saying it makes me feel a little guilty because of how little of Dickens’ work I’ve actually read. I’ve read plenty of worthy, classic fiction over the years, but in looking at his work, I’m beginning to think I never gave this formidable author a fair shake.

Dickens’ plots read like modern day soap operas, featuring orphans under the influence of evil ne’er-do-wells, escaped convicts, troublesome lawyers, sympathetic loners and beautiful, young girls with hearts of gold. New characters drift in and out and you never quite know who’s a menace or who’s a good guy.  And the action all plays out against backdrops ranging in the extreme from gothic, romantic mansions to lowly, dark alleyways.

Then there are the stories behind the stories. Did you know, for example, Dickens’ books have never gone out of print? And did you also know that many of his works were originally published as weekly or monthly serials? I love thinking about eager readers awaiting the latest issue of a magazine to hit the streets so they could get their dose of high drama!

Maplewood Library has a large collection of the works of Charles Dickens in a variety of forms and accessible to people of all ages. Happy 200th Birthday, Mr. Dickens!

• bathrooms says:
  I wish more people would write blogs like this that are really fun to read. With all the fluff float...
• Barbara says:
  In recent years I've gotten most of my Dickens from "Masterpiece Theater". But I always mean to rea...
• Suzanne says:
  "Fahrenheit 451" blew my mind as a kid just as "The Illustrated Man" did a few years ago....
• Barbara says:
  Hitchens was one of our best essayists. He will be greatly missed....